kadmium

August 14 was a fine Saturday morning and we were up really early for some reason. It was something like 7:00; I have no idea at this point why we were up so early on a Saturday, but we were. Katie was on the phone with her mom when suddenly the dogs started snorting and running back and forth through the house. This usually means somebody is driving into the cul-de-sac or up the alley behind the house, but we already had our paper, so it wasn’t that.

Katie walked over to the front window to see what was going on and waved me over kind of frantically. As I walked over, I could see that something was in our yard, and I thought maybe one of the neighbor’s kids had left something up in our yard again. Then it moved.

I got to the window and right below us, not ten feet away, were a big mama moose and twin mooselets, helping themselves to Katie’s outdoor salad bar. I went and got the camera and started taking pictures. I shot a whole roll that morning before the family took off, and everybody had a good time looking out the windows.

Our survey of the damage showed that the moose enoyed the broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce quite a bit, and the sweet pea vines were apparently pretty tasty. The squash and carrots went untouched. Hmf. No dessert until you finish your vegetables!

The next morning, while Katie was at the gym, I happened to look out the window and guess who was back! This was actually close to noon, and I have no earthly idea how they got down the street without any dogs barking. The only thing I can imagine is that they spent the night back in the woods down the alley &#mdash; there aren’t any dogs between our house and those woods &#mdash; and came back through our back yard. Well, I got the dogs sequestered (which displeased them mightily) and went outside with the camera. Being very careful to keep our shiny new six-foot chain link fence between me and the beasties, I shot another roll.

As the moose moved from the front yard to the alley in back, I was able to get right next to the mama, as the pictures will bear out. (No, I still haven’t seen any bears.) She seemed calm as long as she was between me and the babies (who stayed up on the rise between our yard and the alley.) The one time that one of the twins ventured toward me, mama came thundering back in big, loud hurry. Note to self: don’t get between a mama moose and a mooselet.

After I finished that roll, I released the hounds, and they went hammering out into the back yard, barking their little heads off. The moose were mightily impressed. Uh-huh. They slowly ambled off down the alley, more, I think, because they were simply annoyed by the noise than anything else.

As of today, we’ve had a couple of brief visits from mama and the twins since then, but nothing longer than a few minutes, and almost always late at night. Then, last night one of the neighbor’s dogs was barking, barking, barking at around 10:00 pm. She’d been barking for about fifteen minutes before we checked on her; she’s been known to bark at the door for half an hour before being allowed in. I finally got up to make sure she was alright and what do you know? They were back to finish the garden. I think they were worried we weren’t going to get it cleaned out before the first freeze and all those lovely vegetables would be wasted.

The twins are getting so big! They worked on the garden for a while, then worked on the crab apple tree next door for a while, then mosied off down the fence line and into the alley. A couple of times during the night we heard neighborhood dogs barking, presumably as the moose moved through their section of the alley.

This morning, Katie came and got me up to tell me that the twins were back one more time. They had worked the garden for a while again, then concentrated on the cottoneaster (pronounced “kuh tone’ ee aster”, not “cotton-easter” shrubs along our driveway. From what we understand, these hardy plants are wintertime favorites of the moose, so we haven’t been trimming them this summer, assuming that they’ll get a good trim when it’s snowing.

After they’d eaten their fill, they flopped down on the front lawn for a nap. Eventually, they moved off. We never did see mama this morning. I feel pretty certain we’ll be seeing all of them more as the weather gets colder and the food gets harder to find out in the woods and up in the hills.